the brightest among its treBBures, beyond comparison the brightest, ,Jesus Christ," the Son of the J<'o.thor" and the Saviou1· of tho worl<l, an<l the Holy Spirit, "the promise of tho Fnther," and tho Regenerator and Sanctifier of human hearts. "Thanks be unto Goel for his unspoakablo gift," tho fit refrain of ten thousand songs-songs of life, of light, of warmth, of love, of reason, of memory, of imagination, of hope, of beauty, of joy-is nevertheless heard, first of all, in its fullest tonJs, in its richest strains, as the refrain of those songs, that celebrate the gift of Jesus to a once prostrate worl<l, and the "promise of the Father" to that same world just begun to lift its hea<l, and gasp for pure air, and to beg for a little lig_ht, and a little love and hope. To that doubting prayer of a world crushed under sm and darkness so long, and wrung from it by the bitterness of its effectual woe, how large the answer that came down wrnpt in the "promise of the Father" I And within the narrower limits of Christ's own testimony respecting the Holy Spirit, this title preserves the harmony of Scripture. "The ]!'ather . . . shall give you another Comforter" (John xiv. 16); "The Father will send . . . the Comforter, the Holy Ghost" (John xiv. 26); "The Spirit of truth, which proceedeth from the Father" (,John xv. 2G). We may notice these testimonies of Christ the more observantly, because they grow up lovingly tangled among allusions to his own relations to the Spilit, and to the "sending" of him. Of which more follows immediately. 2. The title is one that specially honours the Father. Taking into account the exact juncture, it may perhaps be viewed as intentionally an almost final act for the days of Christ's tarrying on earth, of honour, of obe<lience, of the reverent love of a true, sublime Sonship on the part of Christ toward God the Father. Only the day before his crucifixion had Christ spoken with some fulness and in some detail of his own relation to the Spirit. That relation must be a very close one, to answer correctly to the things which Jesus then said and implied as well. For instance: "I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter" (John xiv. 16); "The Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my Name" (John xv. 26); "'l'he Comforter . . . whom I will send unto you from the Father" (John xv. 26); "If I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you. But if I depart, I wi1l send him unto you" (John xvi. 7); "'l'he Spirit of truth . . . shall glorify me; for he shall receive of mine, and shall show it unto you" (John xvi. 13, 14 ). Not in the whole body of these sayings of Christ is there, indeed, anything that trenches upon the rights of the Father; yet now the great original Promiser is justly brought, and is as it were finally left by Christ in the place of first majesty and prominence. 3. The title offers, for all devout and reverent thought, to link together that present, which ever seems so prosaic, so unmemorable with hallowed antiquity, with the sacredness of the past, with the legitimate enchantment of distance. The promise reminds (and in this case most plainly) of the Promiser. .And this Promiser of ages past, long waited for, not seldom distrusted, sometimes despaired of, is now in a moment or two going to be manifested-the faithful Promiser. He is none other than the Father everlasting I Promise adds preciousness to bestowment in several ways-in the very tension of the moral nature which it challenges, in the mutual keeping hold of hands (all the while that the promise subsists), of promiser and promisee, in the educatory processes of varied sort that are sure to be transpiring during all the same interval, and, in a word, in the preparation of the receiver for the thing prepared for him, as well o.s in his final supreme gratification on receiving it. But come this time, the "forecasting of the years" past, "the reaching of the hand through time to catch the far-off interest of tears " over, and the blank days that have been yield to the dawn of radfance itself. So sang Moses, when now at last he sow the land, "the promise of the Father"-
" My Father's hope I my childhood's dream I 'fhe promise from on high I Long waited for I its glories beam Now when my death is nigh. " III y dc11th is come, but not decay: Nor eye uor 1Uind is di1U; Tho keonncss of youth's vigorous daf Thrills in each nerve e.nd liwb. ,24 THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. [oB, L 1-26,
" Blcst eoene I thrice welcome after toil- If no deceit I view ; Oh, might my lips but prose the soil, And prove ihe vision truo I" (J. n. Newman.)